From X-SIM DIY motion simulator community - international wiki
The video motion plugin version 2.0
This addon software will help you to design a motion home cinema. Such a installation is good know out of the big Disneyland movie rooms. You will find actuators on every seat that moves to the current situation in the canvas in front the visitors. With this plugin you can use any media player video and make your own motions fitting to the movie. Therefore you are also able to use standard PAL or NTSC movies or the new HDMI formats. It is only limited by your hardware. The plugin can be runned as viewer or as editor. If you need your result as fullscreen video, you can also use the command line or double click the motion data file in your windows explorer. Because the media player is used, you are able to use all of its plugins and rightclick features. If you use a video with a unknown codec, you only have to install it for windows mediaplayer and this plugin works with it. You are able to select any position in the video and design a force value from the current position to the next position. Therefore the plugin uses two windows for the start and endposition of a motion.
Where you can get video material for your motion simulator ?
On the search for good movie sequences for this plugin I have found many different sources. The rollercoaster nolimts could be recorded on DVD, but the force injector gives a real output. There are some other rollercoaster simulators on the market (Sybex, Rolelrcoaster Tycoon) which are better. Theese could be realtime captured with some desktop to AVI programs. Also there are some prerendered scifi rollercoaster movies on the market. The best results delivers Amazon.de with the “eKirmes” DVD series. They bring out some 1st person real rollercoaster videos and bundled them on about 5 DVD’s. Theese have Copyrights on it, so we cannot deliver a complete solution, but for provate they are ok. A not good, but easy source is youtube.
What you have to do / Setup preparation
First you have to insure that both video windows work correct. This should normaly no problem for anyone but if a special codec pack was installed there could be different overlay default setups. So if the left or right movie window is black after you have loaded a movie you have to change this option on both windows. This could also happen, if you pause one of the players. Also there could be black playback. This could be fixed with the normal mediaplayer option with a rightclick on the video window. So rightclick and search for the overlay option. This depends on each used codec pack. Search for overlay options or filter options and deaktivate them. In windows there is only one overlay possible, so better switch overlay to disabled and use directx or direct draw options. If you found the right option, both windows in the video plugin should display a picture if you pause them. A fresh windows installation would work as it is. If you want to make motion on your simulator, you should press the “try send data” button in the force sender application. Also you have to load the Video plugin .rn2 simulator profile file in the profiler2. The autostart trigger is also used by this plugin. Then you are able to see your input and sync the motion to your simulator because a hardware is everytime delayed. The left mediaplayer is the sending masterplayer to your simulator ! Your simulator will therefore only move, if you playback the left view. Usage of the motion maker plugin
The slider on the left side represents the output value of the middle black marker of a selected x.y and z output. You have to click on a diagram to enable the work with this diagram. If you press the “Set red” button a direct line to the red marker line is generated. The red marker line represents the video position of the right media player. If you like to change only one axis you have to remove the checkbox entry on the axis you want to ignore. The slider on the right side is the complement of the left sliders. The plugin allows five undo steps. If you use single steps in the vidoe, you have to know that a step foreward will always be 200ms and backward 100ms. The recording frequency is 100ms what are 10 times a second. The whole video motion cannot be longer than 2 hours. After you have saved the project you will find a similar motion file byside your video in the ame directory and with the same name as your video but another extension wgich you are able to doubleclick for playback. This file extension is .fsm and the video file has to be placed in the same directory. To make a change to the curves of the motion file, you have to stop both players.
The joystick mode: If a joystick is present, you are able to aktivate it with the “Use joystick” checkbox. Normaly you are evertime slower with your joystick input, so a motion would be played behind the video shows. Therefore you will find a offset slider near the joystick dialog. You should place it to about 200ms to the future, this depends on your reaction time. Also this could help you, if your simulator also has a slow reaction time. If you have produced some unwanted false spikes, you can remove them with the above method to straighten the motion lines. (Set Red - Set Black)
Hotkeys for fullscreen mod of the left media player: STRG+ALT+Q=Play STRG+ALT+A=Pause STRG+ALT+Y=Stop (Mouse pointer bug ?) STRG+ALT+W=enter fullscreen Esc=leave fullscreen (as usual)
If you are bothered about the blue control bars in the play mode, you can disable it in the mediaplayer options -> options. You can then control with the above hotkey controls.
Importing motion data of a acceleration logger hardware or other sources
You will find a import option in the file menu, which enables you to import motion data to your video from external sources. The datas have to look like this sample, devided by commas:
512, 512, 512, 513, 512, 512 ...
The above sample shows a simple input with three data sources and can be extended to 6 data sources:
512, 512, 512, 512, 100, 130, 513, 512, 512, 512, 100, 130, ...
